Something I’ve noticed in session over and over again, and in myself, if I’m honest, is that when a decision feels impossible, the instinct isn’t to decide. The instinct is to ask one more person.

I did this recently. I had a decision I’d been sitting with, and I called a trusted friend to “get her perspective.” Halfway through the conversation, I realized: I wasn’t looking for new information. I already had all the information I needed. I was looking for permission. Or maybe for someone to tell me which option hurts less.

That’s a playing-it-safe move, and it’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot this week.

Because here’s what I’ve come to believe after eighteen years of working with overthinkers and overachievers: impossible decisions don’t need more information. They need a different question.

Not “what’s the right option?” because that’s the one that keeps you frozen. But “what am I standing for?” – that one has an answer.

In this week’s episode of the Playing-It-Safe podcast, I’m talking about the specific playing-it-safe move that lives inside every impossible decision: waiting for a good option in a situation where no good option exists.

We go into the psychology of why your mind does this (it’s not broken, it’s doing exactly what it was built to do), and I walk through a step-by-step practice (the Values Compass Check) for what to do when every option feels wrong.

There’s also a moment in the episode that I was a little nervous to share, but I think it’s the most honest thing I’ve said on the podcast in a while.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts or at the link here.

And if you’ve been sitting with something, a decision that’s been running its own endless meeting in your head, I hope this episode gives you a different place to stand.

Show notes with time-stamps

1:10 The real cost of waiting for the “good option”: time and presence
2:10 How waiting itself becomes a decision
3:16 The playing-it-safe move: choosing least discomfort over alignment with your values
4:12 Why your mind wasn’t built for choices where every option hurts
5:32 How your mind defines “safety” and why that’s not the same as a life
6:07 Goals vs. values (Kelly Wilson’s distinction) and why it reframes hard decisions
7:18 The entry point: pausing instead of over-analyzing
7:52 The Values Compass Check exercise
8:19 Step 1: Name the decision and list every option
8:39 Step 2: Ask “what am I standing for?” for each option
9:19 Why avoidance-driven regret hurts more than the wrong choice
10:11 David’s story: leaving a 15-year career and the question that unlocked his answer
11:36 Where ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) actually lives: values-based action
12:40 What changes when you choose from values isn’t the difficulty, it’s your relationship to it
13:00 Dr. Z’s personal story: her uncle’s hospitalization and her cat’s, Meli Milagrosito, illness
16:33 Living your values has nothing to do with emotions or perfection
17:04 Living your values is like finding a lighthouse in the storm
17:36 The outcome: losing her uncle and her cat within days of each other
18:26 Living your values isn’t a Hollywood ending

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

P.S., if you want to get clearer on what you actually value in the areas where you feel most stuck, my Values-Based Review is free and it’s the best first step: https://proud-snow-5694.ck.page/d2a5e77ba3

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.

You’ve probably heard the advice: just show up. Just be there. And you do. You walk through the door, you sit at the table, you’re technically present.

But what if the phone in your hand, the seat near the exit, the constant questions you ask so no one ever asks you anything back … what if those are the very things quietly blocking the life you want to live?

That’s what this episode of the Playing-It-Safe podcast is about. The subtle safety crutches that nobody else sees, but you know are there.

Show notes with time-stamps

0:32 “Safety crutches:” the subtle ways we show up while hiding behind a shield
1:36 Why safety crutches are hard to spot
2:05 How the anxiety loop works: your mind as an “advisory board”
2:51 Everyday examples: phone checking, crossed arms, sitting near the exit
3:44 The relational cost: people can feel the distance
4:43 ACT framework: “safety behaviors” aren’t a character flaw
5:16 Salkovskis’ research: safety behaviors maintain anxiety long-term
5:59 Psychological flexibility and getting “stuck”
6:34 Why subtle safety behaviors are hard to see in yourself
7:18 The skill: dropping subtle safety behaviors
7:36 Step 1: Name your crutches without shame
8:00 Common social & professional safety behaviors
9:18 “What is this behavior protecting me from feeling?”
9:53 Your fear points to what matters most
10:31 Encouraging you to try mini experiments to drop your crutches one by one
11:18 Let anxious feelings be there instead of fighting them
12:03 Listener story: dropping the “talk non-stop” crutch
12:45 The big question: what do you want your life to feel like?
13:29 How safety crutches block genuine connection
13:50 Dr. Z shares her own safety crutch: overexplaining

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.

There is a reason reassurance never fully lands. It’s not because you asked the wrong person or didn’t search long enough.

It’s because certainty is not what’s actually available, and your mind knows it, which is why the loop starts again twelve minutes later.

Episode 102 of the Playing-It-Safe podcast is about the checking trap: what it is, why it works in the short run, and the ACT skill that actually interrupts it.

Show notes with time-stamps

0:00 The reassurance-seeking loop (texting, googling, checking again)
2:22 The hidden cost of reassurance: it trains your mind to need more of it
3:07 What reassurance-seeking is really costing you (judgment, relationships, life)
4:19 The psychology behind it: Stanley Rachman’s research on safety behaviors
5:18 Michael Dugas and the intolerance of uncertainty model
6:19 Skills you can try to interrupt a reassurance loop
9:24 Addressing the shame underneath reassurance-seeking
10:12 The values question: what is the checking protecting you from?
11:01 Dr. Z’s personal example
12:10 This week’s challenge: sit with uncertainty for 5 minutes

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.

He had a great presentation. His mind told him for two days it was a disaster, and it’s all because of four seconds.

That’s not self-reflection. That’s cognitive fusion. And it’s one of the most invisible playing-it-safe behaviors there is.

Episode 101 of the Playing-It-Safe podcast is about overvaluing your thoughts and the deceptively simple ACT skill that starts to untangle it.

Show notes with time-stamps

0:00 A friend’s presentation and the four seconds that haunted him
0:24 How the mind fixates on the “wrong” moment over everything that went right
0:50 Cognitive defusion (ACT)
1:45 How a thinking loop works
2:30 Choosing your thought relationship
2:54 The immense cost of over-identifying with your thoughts
3:52 What cognitive defusion means
4:08 Steven Hayes on defusion and literal truth
4:22 Research on stepping back from thoughts
4:44 Thomas Borkovec on thought suppression backfiring
5:15 Exercise: don’t think about dark chocolate
5:38 The ACT skill: thanking your mind
5:50 What thanking your mind (defusion) means
6:30 How to practice it, step 1: notice the thought as a thought
7:25 Step 2: thank your mind
8:04 Step 3: choose your response based on values, not the thought
9:02 A client’s story: staying in the conversation despite the thought
9:34 Your mind isn’t the oracle of truth
9:51 A question to consider: what if anxious thoughts were just weather?
10:25 Psychological flexibility doesn’t require your mind to change
10:51 Dr. Z’s own imposter thought
11:46 This week’s playing-it-safe behavior + mini assignment

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.

Gloria Mark’s research found that after a distraction, it takes an average of 23 minutes to return to the original task. Yup, 23 minutes. Not because you’re undisciplined. Because the digital world you live in was literally designed, using the same behavioral principles as slot machines, to pull your attention away from what matters.

In this episode you’ll also hear four concrete skills to help you stay focused and keep doing what matters to you, even when everything around you is pulling your attention somewhere else.

Show notes with time-stamps

0:00 The friend who understands his values but still can’t focus
1:58 Playing-it-safe behavior #6: checking, scrolling, and drifting
2:11 Gloria Mark’s research on task-switching and the 23-minute recovery
3:09 Matthew Crawford on attention as a contested resource
4:00 Nir Eyal’s research on internal triggers as the true driver of distraction
4:16 Cal Newport’s deep work research: focus as a trainable skill
4:37 Committed action and psychological flexibility
4:55 Four principles from chapter 8 of the ACT Workbook
5:05 Principle 1: The personal commitment statement
5:37 Principle 2: Environmental design before willpower
6:11 Principle 3: Progressive focus training
6:42 Principle 4: Compassionate coaching during focused work
8:42 This week’s challenge: design a focused work session

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

And if you missed any of the episodes on procrastination, one of the most classic playing-it-safe moves out there, you can catch up here:

​Ep. 93 — Understanding Procrastination: The Psychological Processes Behind It​
​Ep. 94 — You’re Not Lazy, Your Mind is Just Very Good at This​
​Ep. 95 — Stop Chasing Goals. Start Living Your Values.​
​Ep. 96 — The Second Arrow: Why Being Hard on Yourself is Keeping You Stuck​
​Ep. 97 — Your Mind is Lying to You About Why You Can’t Start​
​Ep. 98 — The Goal Trap: Why Your Goals are Keeping You Stuck
Ep. 99 — You Don’t Have a Time Problem. You Have a Time Story.

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.

This week on the Playing-It-Safe podcast, we are diving deep into the psychology of time, procrastination, and flow.

We are bypassing the standard “productivity culture” advice and looking at what the research actually says!

This is the episode for the person who knows all the time management strategies and is still stuck.

Show notes with time-stamps

0:00 The friend who “worked better under pressure”
1:57 Using stories about time as permission to wait
2:58 Kahneman and Tversky’s planning fallacy
3:40 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research on flow states
4:38 Principle 1: Add a 25% time buffer to estimates
4:49 Principle 2: Energy scheduling over time scheduling
5:19 Principle 3: Designing for flow rather than efficiency
5:43 Principle 4: The two-minute completion focus
6:51 This week’s challenge: examine your beliefs about time

Listen Here

​Apple​
​Spotify

And if you want to see the full picture of your playing-it-safe behaviors, not just around time, my free questionnaire is at thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-questionnaire.

Learn research-based skills and actionable steps to make better decisions, adjust to uncertain situations, make bold moves, & do more of what matters to you.